Vivian’s seaweed-like silky hair was spread over the bed, but the joyful sparkle in her eyes was gone. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Her lips opened and closed mechanically. Christian subconsciously let go of her hands. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She was so cold. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He had never seen Vivian Joseph as cold as she was now. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As far as he could remember, she had always been an elegant young woman by every standard, gentle, sweet, warm, like a ray of sunshine in spring. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Yet now she was cold as winter. She had stopped looking at him with loving eyes. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I don’t need it anyway.” He laughed resentfully and left the room. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Things got worse. Jessica began to unscrupulously boss her around, which inevitably encouraged the servants to give her a hard time too. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Whenever she tried to fight back, Christian would always show up to make her life more miserable, as if Jessica had cast a spell on him. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He confiscated her phone without which she couldn’t get in touch with her parents or Patrick. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She laughed at herself. Why had she forgotten what her sister was capable of? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jessica once accidently broke their father’s favorite vase, and she blamed it on Vivian, just like what she did now. If Vivian hadn’t had a heart condition, she would have been beaten to death in the study. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Standing in the shade, she suddenly heard someone talking outside, “Miss Joseph’s parents are coming to visit. We’d better be well prepared not to embarrass Mr. North.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Josephs were coming to see their daughters. The good news gave Vivian a renewed sense of hope. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She could finally leave this horrible place when her parents arrived! <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The day finally came. Vivian had been wide awake before dawn. Standing in front of the window, she was eager to see her parents. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
At about nine o’ clock in the morning, a limousine slowly drove in. Two people got off the car. Their clothes looked expensive. One could tell that they were not ordinary people. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Dad! Mom!” Jessica quickly ran over to greet them. She held her parents’ hands and smiled, “I’ve missed you so much.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Jessica, look at you. You went to see your sister as soon as you came home from abroad. Have you forgotten we are your parents?” Mrs. Joseph complained, though she wasn’t unhappy at all. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jessica said playfully, “I just missed my sister too much!” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It’s a good thing that you sisters love each other dearly. But don’t forget your parents. You sister hasn’t called us for nearly half a month. Don’t follow her example.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After exchanging greetings for a while, it occurred to Mrs. Joseph that she hadn’t seen the other daughter. She asked, “Where’s Vivian? Isn’t she here?” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Vivian, she…” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Mom,” Vivian emerged from her room. After what she had gone through in the past days, her exhaustion was obvious, though she had made great efforts to look better. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Oh, God! What’s going on with you? You look terrible!” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Touched by her mother’s concern, Vivian pinched her thigh to warn herself not to cry right now. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Why, why don’t we come in and talk?” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Mrs. Joseph followed her while holding Jessica’s hand. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With much indifference, Vivian turned around to explain, “Mom, I want to talk to you alone. Why don’t you ask Jessica to go outside?” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Sister, how unkind you are! Is there anything that you don’t want me to hear?” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Indeed, you were quite close to your sister when you were little children. Why are you growing apart now?” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jessica had to let go of Mrs. Joseph’s hand at Vivian’s insistence. She stomped and left. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Go ahead and tell me, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Joseph asked. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Vivian’s nose twitched at her mother’s loving face and caring words. Tears were running down her face. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She got all the grievances since she had married Christian North off her chest. She was sad and resentful. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Mrs. Joseph hurriedly came to her and wiped her tears. She was worried about her daughter, “Why are you crying, my dear? Mom is here. Tell me everything. I’ll solve any problem for you.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She was choking with sobs, “Mom, I want to divorce.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010\u0010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vivian’s seaweed-like silky hair was spread over the bed, but the joyful sparkle in her eyes was gone. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Her lips opened and closed mechanically. Christian subconsciously let go of her hands. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She was so cold. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He had never seen Vivian Joseph as c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extnovel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}